Ask Atos Healthcare disability assessment questions

nixe · 13 February 2013 at 3:26PM

isolation wrote: »

Definitely lodge a complaint - Though they will just say that the HCP can't remember doing so and that customer services were not present at the assessment and so cannot confirm.

They will probably also say that they cannot accept the recording as the HCP was not made aware of it

(both of these happened with us).

Follow the complaint through to their 3rd tier (I have a copy of their complaints procedure if ATOS refuse to give it to you)

Complain to your MP and to the regulatory body of the HCP (GMC or NMC) - Both of the latter should allow the recordings to be taken into account.

Good luck,
Dee
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

thanx i have emailed her the answers on here, just waiting for her to get in touch, does she put the complaint in now
or does she wait for her report to come back?

JS477 · 13 February 2013 at 3:30PM

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Hi everyone

Can we ask a favour?

Could you try to keep the thread on topic, with just questions for Atos please so they can easily see the questions and hopefully give our forum users answers?

Also, where it can't answer a question because it's not something it covers we're encouraging Atos to post saying it can't answer but that it can give a link to where the answer can be found.

Obviously this shouldn't take away from posts it can answer but hopefully this will help people when it can't.

Thanks in advance

Andrea

Why are you referring to the MSE sponsored Atos Rep as an 'it'. Does 'it' not have a gender??

JS477 · 13 February 2013 at 3:46PM

As you say "The remit of the thread is questions about the Work Capability Assessment process" (not that you've answered any of them properly) so given that Atos "doctors" and "HCP" are involved in the WCA process how many "doctors" and "HCPs" have been reported to the GMC or Regulatory Bodies for carrying out sub-standard WCAs?

If you aren't allowed to divulge the numbers then perhaps as your sponsors have suggested you may like to post a link to where I can find out how many of your "HCPs" are under investigation!

JS477 · 13 February 2013 at 3:49PM

nixe wrote: »

thanx i have emailed her the answers on here, just waiting for her to get in touch, does she put the complaint in now
or does she wait for her report to come back?

She needs to put the complaint in as quickly as possible as Atos may try all sorts to wriggle out of taking the matter seriously.

Fridge3 · 13 February 2013 at 4:03PM

damo24 wrote: »

I'm so pleased to see that (as usual) you are cherry picking parts of posts to challenge. Let's start with your maths but before we do we should bear in mind Table 3 J88: "Outcomes of appeals heard on Fit for Work decisions in the initial functional assessment: initial decision overturned [to date]: 37%".

Either the person compiling the spreadsheet has made a mistake in the figures or your maths is wrong which is something I can prove.

Your calculations are based on the figure in Table 1a, cell J103 which is the Total caseload to date. The problem with using that figure is that this also includes what the compiler classifies as "Status of claims where functional assessment has not been completed" in other words applicants who are still undergoing the initial assessment.

Unless you can prove otherwise I think that it is fair to say that it would be completely impossible for someone to appeal against a decision that has not yet been made.

Going further (and using your flawed maths), a slightly more accurate figure would be Table 3 C88 / Table 1a F103 = Initial decisions overturned to date / Outcomes of claims where functional assessment has been completed to date = 7.5%, a figure around 1.7 times larger than your 4.5%.

Let's take this a step further, Table 3 F88 shows that more than 1.5 times the total of completed appeals were still awaiting hearings at the time of the report. As 37% of all appeals were upheld Table 3 C88 / Table 3 D88 = Initial decision overturned / Any outcome = 37% (as also shown in Table 3 I88) this would suggest that we can expect around 37% of those people awaiting a tribunal to have their decision overturned at appeal.

Should we extrapolate the 37% figure (which has been rounded down to exclude decimal places) to the number awaiting an appeal (bearing in mind that these people are actually included in the "Any outcome" Table 1a F103 figure and add that to the "initial decision overturned" Table 3 C88 then the figure in that box rises to 275.9.

Just to eliminate any doubt, my working out of this figure is 37% of 452.6 (Table 3 F88) is 167.5 (452.6/100 = 4.526 * 37 = 167.5 rounded to 1 decimal place). 167.5 (37% of Table 3 F88) + 108.4 (Table 3 C88) = 275.9.

Using your formula (which everyone including the compiler disagrees with - see Table 3 J88) with these revised figures we suddenly have a rise to 19.2% (rounded to one decimal place).

Again to eliminate any doubt, here is how I came to this figure. Table 3 C88 (+ 37% of Table 3 F88) / Table 1a F88 = initial decision overturned + 37% of Status of Fit for Work decisions where there is no completed appeals information at this date / Outcomes of claims where functional assessment has been completed = 19.2%.

This figure which is more than 4 times your figure is reached by using the correct cells and admittedly some extrapolation however even without the extrapolation and ignoring the massive number of people awaiting appeal results, the figure is still 7.5% (using your system).

Above all else I want to stress again the figure in Table 3 J88 which is "Percentage of heard appeals - Outcomes of appeals heard on Fit for Work decisions in the initial functional assessment - initial decision overturned" is 37%.

Just to spell this out for you, the person who compiled the report has not tried to calculate figures by carrying out complicated equations in order to fit an agenda, or to suit a pattern he or she was looking for. This person has stated that at the date of the report (more than 12 months ago) 37% of ALL initial fit for work decisions were overturned on appeal. As I pointed out in my previous post, this does not include appeals against "fit for work" decisions on re-assessment, appeals to be moved from WRAG to SG and any decisions changed at the reconsideration stage.

Let's also have a look at your claim that:

For the avoidance of doubt I will reproduce the full text. This can be found in the pdf at http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/workingage/esa_wca/esa_wca_jan2013.pdf on page 9 (which is actually the 13th page of the document). The complete text reads:

Unless I am reading this wrongly, the above quote states that "39 per cent of all Fit For Work decisions have been appealed against" and that "31 per cent of initial Fit For Work decisions appealed against were overturned after challenge". I think that you will find that the 39% and 31% figures I quoted do relate to the post I quoted.

Changing cells doesn't make my calcs flawed, it just means you're quoting a different stat and diverting from what was posted.

You've gone to a lot of trouble to try and discount all the assessments that aren't appealed and what was said in #1170 as well as what was originally posted.

Perhaps you could go further and find one of the minority who have appealed, had their decision upheld and claim 100% of WCA's are appealed and won [in their case] and use that as a headline stat instead.

isolation · 13 February 2013 at 4:05PM

halight wrote: »

Glad You are now moving the right way now.

I'm juast worried that this might not be the end of the nightmere for you,
Will she still have to go for other ATOS medicals as time goes on?
If so this is were all the worry could start all over again for the both of you. And of course all that extra stress on you both will have a large impact on your health as well as hers.

Oh my god!!! This stuff is too bizarre for words.
I got home today to find my partner really upset again after the success of her tribunal yesterday.
An ESA50 came through the door today !!!!
So it starts all over again - at least she had 20 hours of peace in between.

Dee

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv · 13 February 2013 at 4:34PM

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

Hi vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

If the Tribunal Service request an assessment they do so via DWP, so that wording doesn’t rule out that possibility.

And before any letters from ATOS are sent out regarding an assessment appoinment,the customer(me) has to fill in an ESA50 so that ATOS can decide wether a face to face is needed.

Olive_Oyl · 13 February 2013 at 4:57PM

isolation wrote: »

Oh my god!!! This stuff is too bizarre for words.
I got home today to find my partner really upset again after the success of her tribunal yesterday.
An ESA50 came through the door today !!!!
So it starts all over again - at least she had 20 hours of peace in between.

Dee
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

:mad::mad:

JS477 · 13 February 2013 at 5:11PM

isolation wrote: »

Could the ATOS rep explain why ATOS made 3 reports in 13 months for my partner, all which were fallacies and eventually withdrawn as being not fit for purpose but were still relied upon by the buffoons at the DWP.

The tribunal judge asked a single health-related question today before having her claim being reversed and giving a successful outcome. Excellent news for her that someone believes her at last but it is still disgusting that both ATOS and the DWP put her through absolute hell for the last year with successive false reports and a mountain of procedural errors and provable lies.
http://wp.me/p2JYS9-6F

Dee ('a disgruntled family member with a vested interest' (thanks fridge3))
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

A classic and all too common example of what Atos are there for. Atos exist purely to throw people off their benefits by ignoring medical facts and just sticking to their DWP given targets. The taxpayer really is getting shafted by this profit driven company as shown by the 40'ish percent of successful appeals against the huge number of sub-standard WCAs

That "nice" DWP man Hoban said in a reply to the number of successful appeals.

"1,252,500 work capability assessments were undertaken on initial employment and support allowance cases in the period October 2008 to November 2011. Of these, DWP decision makers found 741,900 fit for work.

To date, 289,300 appeals have been heard against these Fit for Work decisions. 180,900 (63%) of the appeals heard were confirmed in the Department's favour, the remaining 108,400 (37%) were confirmed in the favour of the claimant."